Atlas is Hell... No really

[Angrytango 25]

I want to love this game. I REALLY do. I have over 2K hours in Ark and supported it since day one. But Atlas has reached a whole new level of bad. I have 62 hours on record so far.  If my character were to write a diary this is how it would read: Day 1 (games day)
Spawned in the Freeport and life was not bad. Scrounged for mats and finally managed to make a  raft and off we go! Just me and my Captain and the wind in our sails... wait... wind in our sail... Will some one que the wind please??? Ok so the winds will only carry this little raft in certain directions and the seas are high and dangerous! Dread ships are everywhere! It is terrifying, but I am optimistic that we will find a place to call our own and be conquering the seas in no time.  
Game days 1- 13000ish 
My Captain and I  have become quite the ship builders. We had landed on a horridly dry little island that is congested with other survivors and all manner of dastardly pirates. Living conditions are abhorrent. There are so many people packed on this tiny God-forsaken corner of the map. I long to get on the ocean and discover new and exciting places and find a land claim of our own. There is little food and resources and even when you are able to find them you must be constantly vigilant! Theft is rampant and the neighbors are toxic. No fear! We have this figured out. All we have to do is build a sloop and off we go! First sloop built and it is off into the wild blue yonder! The wind seems to only want to carry us again in certain directions, but my Captain is a fast study so I am confident things will go well. We are still looking for a place to call our own. Our Sloop was boarded by hostiles. In what turns out to be a disastrous blunder,  I left the ladder down. I can't believe I did that but I am still getting my sea legs. The Captain was not happy. The scurvy thieves were able to get everything in our smithy and two boxes that I also left unlocked. neither one of our ships has canons. the Captain is an excellent sailor at this point. We ran them down and repeatedly rammed their ship. there were five in their crew and they died off and stopped coming back. The Captain is relentless! Skirmish over, and quite exhilarated we park the Sloop and tuck in for some sleep. Bright and early the next day we arise for some ocean adventure. But wait! What is this? Sloop gone? back on the Island. This time we will build a beautiful schooner. The pace is slow since the resources are scarce and there is just the Captain and myself, but we can do this. fast forward four days (real life days here) and we are off! It is the Shogun's maiden voyage and life could not be better.... It is now 1:30 AM and we have been sailing for hours. We are exhausted and have yet to find even one tiny piece of land to stake a claim and start our new life. We are  disappointed and vitamin-depleted. We finally make it to a Freeport and dock for the night. Lacking a better alternative this will have to do so we can get some much-needed rest. Just a few hours of sleep.....Well it is four hours later and coffee in hand we are ready to seize the day and finally make that land claim. WAIT what is this? The Shogun is destroyed?! WHY??? We docked in the Freeport this time and it was only a few hours! Okay back to the island. We are down but not out. This time just a sloop. We will focus on getting out there and finding our claim at long last. With the sloop built we are now on our way once again. It has been rough, but we will make it this time...
Game day 15706: This is my final journal entry. Last night things were going so well! We have a sloop full of treasure and FINALLY at long last we saw on the map a spot we might be able to claim. We were so CLOSE! On approach to this new and  exciting territory, sloop laden with supplies to start our build, we were surrounded by Dreads that came out of nowhere. They were every where. The Captain ordered me to dump the cargo. The wind was low and we just could not get enough speed out of her. We were overtaken not far from shore. The Captain and I started swimming. I made it, but alas he did not. The shark infested waters and exhaustion overcame him and he perished, leaving me to try to find my own way. I drug myself to shore and managed to secure food and scrape together enough supplies to make a bed. I was so excited, as I was even able to stake a claim! We still had one last shot! I began gathering supplies to put up a temporary shelter and resurrect the Ghost captain, but in the dark I stumbled into this strange hole in the ground! Not an ordinary hole mind you. It was a weird and dreadful place where you could see for an eternity if you looked just the right way. But try as I might I can not get out. I am trembling with cold and starving. I have tried everything I can and all that is left for me to do is dump what precious items I was able to scrounge from the sinking ship so that no one else is able to get them. Here in this hole, I wait for the end. At the beginning of this adventure I was 20 years old. I am now 49. Once so full of hope, I am now alone and shivering in the dark. Life SHOULD have been so sweet. 
If you are thinking this sounds like it may have been fun, think again. It has been an exhausting grind of real life hours wasted for nothing. Ark is so much better. I KNOW this is early access and I get it. But I think that so many of the issues could be fixed if the devs will only listen to the players and play their own game on a public server and see how miserable it really is. I have hopes it will get better. I really do. but it is just not there yet. 
 

Edited January 1, 2019 by Angrytango